- Groundhogs (their scientific name is Marmota monax) are related to squirrels. Where predators are scarce and alfalfa is abundant, they can grow to three feet in length — tail included — and may weigh as much as 30 pounds. They’ve been known to live as long as 22 years in captivity.
- American groundhogs, mostly brown tinged with gray, can be found from Alabama to Alaska. They are lowland creatures but boast yellow-bellied relatives who live in high places, such as the Rocky Mountains.
- In some areas, groundhogs are simply known as marmots; in others they are called land beavers or, sometimes, “whistle pigs” because of their propensity for sitting on their hind legs near their burrows and making a whistling noise to signal their neighbors when danger (a coyote or an eagle, for example) draws near.
- German immigrants to Pennsylvania in the late 1800s are thought to have brought the groundhog weather-predicting custom with them. The town of Punxsutawney, Pa., eventually became the center of the tradition. At the time, the “unburrowing” ceremony was planned by members of so-called Groundhog Lodges for socializing, eating and making speeches in the Pennsylvania German dialect.
- The European custom did not involve marmots at all. Farmers there used the European badger as their weather guide, or sometimes bears — animals that stir from their winter torpor as the sun’s angle becomes higher and days grow longer. The custom was transferred to groundhogs, which also hibernate, probably because the critters are far more common and gregarious than the larger and ill-tempered American badger.
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